Death of Cranberries Singer Dolores O’Riordan ‘Not Suspicious’, Say Police

Dolores O’Riordan by Eva Rinaldi (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Metropolitan Police say the sudden death of Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan in a Park Lane hotel is “not being treated as suspicious,” according to news media.

The BBC: “Police also confirmed a report was being compiled ready to hand to the coroner’s office to investigate the causes of O’Riordan’s death…A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said the police were called to a hotel in Park Lane at 09:05 GMT on Monday, where ‘a woman in her mid-40s’ was pronounced dead at the scene.”

The AP adds: “The 46-year-old Irish singer was in London to record vocals for a cover of Cranberries hit “Zombie” by Los Angeles rock band Bad Wolves. Dan Waite of music label Eleven Seven said O’Riordan left him a voice message early Monday saying she was looking forward to the recording. He said ‘she sounded full of life, was joking and excited to see me and my wife this week.’”

The post Death of Cranberries Singer Dolores O’Riordan ‘Not Suspicious’, Say Police appeared first on Towleroad.

Death of Cranberries Singer Dolores O’Riordan ‘Not Suspicious’, Say Police

Ansgar Brinkmann im “Dschungelcamp”: Was ihr über ihn wissen solltet

www.huffingtonpost.de/entry/ansgar-brinkmann-im-dschungelcamp-was-ihr-uber-ihn-wissen-solltet_de_5a5dc950e4b03c4189688a3d

Why You Should Park Your Prejudices When Picking Your Kid’s School

Choosing your child’s school is one of the worst parts of being a parent. Having just completed my son’s secondary school application, I’ve certainly felt how stressful it can be.

I’m sure many of you are anxiously awaiting the results of your choices right now too. You’ll have trawled Ofsted reports and attainment tables, had endless conversations with friends, or you might even have suddenly found God to get your kid into a faith school. All to land that coveted place you believe will equate to a life of endless happiness and success for your beloved.

You might also have prejudices about state schools. After all, record numbers of kids now go to private schools.

Indeed, before I moved here from Salisbury, I thought state schools in London meant unruly pupils, drugs and knives, with incapable teachers struggling to cope with too many kids with no interest in learning.

I’m lucky to have done well in my career, so thought I’d be stumping up to send my kids to private school, where they’d be safe and well-educated. However, when it came to my son, it wasn’t so straightforward. Having seen the sacrifices my sister made to educate her kids privately, I wanted to make sure it would be worth it.

So I obsessively researched all state and private school options and the education system as a whole. I looked into the data behind school performance and what factors may be influencing outcomes and what really determines a good school.

I watched talks by Ken Robinson on how little the education system has changed since the Industrial Age. I even got into the psychology behind the choices we make with Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’.

I thought about my friends, ranging from those who went privately to those who went to rough estate schools.

Then I thought of my own personal experience.

I’m a first generation Egyptian immigrant and I arrived in Britain as a child not speaking a word of English. However, I made it into a highly selective grammar school. Which, by the way, did little for my future academic success – I left school at 16 and didn’t go to university, despite growing up in a family of academics. But whatever our educational background, my friends and I have all done pretty well for ourselves.

All of this combined to challenge my previously held beliefs. What became apparent is that school choice is a small factor in determining a child’s future success – academically or in life. Yet we’re obsessing about giving our kids an education that may be irrelevant to the future workplace they’ll be entering into anyway.

In our current age of tech, innovation and AI, what role does a school system designed for the Industrial Age have now? Unless of course you want to be a lawyer, doctor, teacher or scientist. Surely teaching our kids creativity, the value of diversity, a love for learning and being a decent human being are far more important than academic success by way of systemised exams and rote learning?

True diversity is something you rarely see in private schools. And it wouldn’t surprise me if fear of diversity is what drives some people towards the private system in the first place, with the percentage of pupils with English as a second language and the number of kids getting free school dinners cited by some middle class mums – based on my personal experience –  as to why a school isn’t good enough. Which is a complete fallacy – it’s often kids of first generation immigrants who work hardest at school. They come from families and a wider culture where jobs in the likes of medicine and law are the aspirational professions of choice.

There are of course some children from socially deprived backgrounds who do struggle in the school system. The latest research shows that kids from the poorest households are two years behind when they sit their GSCEs and those on free school meals and receiving pupil premium are 27% less likely to achieve five or more GCSEs at grades A*-C. But this is more to do with their circumstances of birth rather than the quality of the school – it’s because they’re less likely to have books at home, to have space to do homework or have parents who have the time to help them with it.

It stands to reason that a school where most kids are from affluent and highly educated backgrounds, where their parents can afford additional tutoring, and has an admissions policy that selects kids that are likely to perform well academically, will have higher academic results compared to a school where most kids come from less privileged backgrounds. But how much of that is down solely to the school itself?

When I chose my son’s secondary school, my decision was based on its inclusive culture, diverse curriculum that embraces creative and academic subjects equally and its strong community ethos. The kids are representative of the wonderful diversity we have in London and particularly a borough like Brent where we live. It also has a respectable level of academic achievement, which I’m sure comes from happy kids in an environment where they’re supported in a way that suits them – where everybody can thrive no matter what their background or abilities.

And that’s the kind of education money simply cannot buy.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/why-you-should-park-your-prejudices-when-picking-your-kids-school_uk_5a54e0bae4b0cd114bdb3686

Transgender Rights Align with Conservative Values

The Fox News crowd needs to realize trans equality is actually part of its agenda.

www.advocate.com/commentary/2018/1/16/transgender-rights-align-conservative-values

Darum begann die “Tagesschau” am Montag eine Minute später

www.huffingtonpost.de/entry/darum-begann-die-tagesschau-am-montag-eine-minute-spater_de_5a5ddcd2e4b0fcbc3a1334a7

NHS Winter Crisis: Even Jacob Rees Mogg Says The NHS Needs More Money
Jacob Rees Mogg has joined the chorus of voices calling for an end to cutbacks to the NHS. 

The prominent Tory backbencher has said it will be “very hard to continue” with health service austerity in 2018 “however much there are limited resources”.

The Brexiteer told Conservative Home the winter flu outbreak was putting hospitals under unprecedented strain and the Prime Minister could not avoid taking action.

It comes after repeated calls by the Labour Party for May to release more money and even Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said that Vote Leave’s pledge to hand the NHS £350m-a-week actually underestimated the scale of cash needed.

The backbencher said housing was key for May in 2018, but added: “The other obvious area is the health service, which is clearly under strain during the winter flu outbreak but in reality austerity in the NHS for 7 years of 1% real increases which is against what has happened in its previous history and is going to be very hard to continue with, however much there are limited resources.”

Doctors and nurses have told HuffPost UK of unprecedented pressures on A&E, including patients waiting 10 hours to be seen by a doctor and stressed staff using their own hospital’s mental health services.

Hospitals were also forced to cancel around 55,000 operations to cope with demand.

Johnson said that the UK’s weekly gross contribution to the EU would rise to £438m, and that the NHS should get extra cash when Britain left.

Rees Mogg also said the NHS should look to use its power to fine councils where a lack of social care beds led to bed blocking at hospitals.

It comes after Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt had responsibility for social care added to his brief in May’s reshuffle.

Rees Mogg said this had previously been viewed as an “aggressive approach towards councils” but, given the scale of the NHS crisis, government “may want to put a little pressure on” local authorities to provide social care.

The influential Tory backbencher also said the Conservatives should not rule out building more homes on green belt land, despite the fierce opposition it may face from Tory associations at a local level.

It comes amid escalating demand for homes, with many young people locked out of the housing market due to a lack of supply and affordable housing.

Rees Mogg said some green belt was “pretty ugly scrub land”, suggesting that not all of it should remain protected from development.  The North East Somerset MP said “the mood of the country has changed” to favour more housebuilding, but added he may even have problems convincing those in his own constituency that building on green belt was part of the solution.

He said: “I recognise that even in my own constituency we are going to face these difficult choices”.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jacob-rees-mogg-nhsspending_uk_5a5dc8c9e4b04f3c55a57683